


An Inch, a Mile; A Minute, an Hour

by allthemeadowswide



Category: When Calls the Heart (TV)
Genre: Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthemeadowswide/pseuds/allthemeadowswide
Summary: He’d been through the what-ifs and if-onlys tens of thousands of times. If only the rope had had more give to it. If only he’d arrived home sooner for lunch. If only he’d known Martin felt that lonely, or scared, or helpless. Maybe he could have been saved.{Or, Bill returns to the city to sell his family home.}





	An Inch, a Mile; A Minute, an Hour

**Author's Note:**

> This story employs a lot of personal headcanons about Bill, his marriage to Nora, his relationship to his son, and his son's death. If you're interested in reading more about my thought process, you can check out [this post on my blog](https://abigailscafe.tumblr.com/post/172962741513/bill-and-feet) for my notes.
> 
> Requested by trash-god on Tumblr. Prompt was "Bill + Feet."
> 
>  **TRIGGER WARNING:** SUICIDE.

 

Snow blanketed the house and the narrow walk that led up to the front door. There were hours of it to endure, yet, if the overcast sky was anything to go by, so the street, usually loud in the afternoons with the sound of children playing after school, was silent. The sound of the key sticking in the lock was too loud—almost jarring—but he pulled the door close to him and lifted up on the handle and after a brief struggle, heard the soft _click_ of the mechanism unlocking.

There had always been a trick to it, one that had plagued Nora every day of their marriage. _“Why can’t we just replace it?”_ she’d asked him more than once and always in that slightly-disgruntled way she preferred to phrase requests. A new lock, a new door. She thought maybe a solid black would look striking against the brick of their home. Or, _“What do you think of white, Bill?”_

He’d never had much of an opinion on things like that, perhaps due to the fact that he couldn’t link it in some way to his work.

And his work, for better or worse, defined him.

Besides, the catch in the lock, the trick to it, defined the door, the space; no other door was like it and therefore no other home was like it. This was _his_ home, one he’d worked hard to pay for and was proud to own despite its perceived faults. So many memories started with him opening that door.

The entryway was gloomy, but the modern convenience of electricity meant it didn’t have to stay that way. He reached for the switch as he wiped his shoes and thought of how strange it was to feel that he was still beholden to old habits. Nora was not here and would never come back and yet…here he was, wiping his shoes to avoid tracking anything onto her clean floors. He supposed after twenty years of marriage, no matter how disappointingly loveless, it was to be expected.

He kept his coat on and headed toward the kitchen. The room looked neglected. Dust littered the countertops and the cupboards, once full-to-brimming, held only a few dishes and pans. He took what remained and arranged it on the table to be sorted later, memories flickering to life just below the surface of his mind: Nora kneading bread on one end while Martin did his homework on the other. It was often the first thing Bill saw when he came home: his wife and boy in the kitchen together.

But it was empty, now, like the rest of the house, and too quiet.

Not so many years ago, Martin had been excitable and young and it wasn’t uncommon to hear him come running to dinner, his small feet amusingly loud against the hardwood floors as he ran all the way down the stairs only to nearly catapult himself into the dining room from the landing.

A nice memory. Martin’s tousled hair and wide smile as he reluctantly removed himself from his chair to wash up for supper at Nora’s insistence, and a mumbled agreement when she reminded him not to run in the house.

He was just a kid being a kid, he always thought, but it wasn’t his place to interfere in raising Martin—at least, that was how Nora put it. He wasn’t home enough to be consistent. Not that she didn’t appreciate the work he did; oh, she _did_! But it was just…weeks away from home, sometimes, traveling for work, putting himself in danger, visiting unsavory places like prisons for witness statements and going to the funerals of his comrades. It was easy for him to want to be lenient when he was home, but it wasn’t fair to her to have to live with it when he was away.

He regretted it a bit, now, not intervening back then—not telling her outright over and over, as many times as it might have taken, that Martin was his son, too, and he loved him more than he’d ever loved anyone before in his life.

Somehow, after more than twenty years of marriage, after tragedy and loss, Nora still found that hard to believe.

The thought hurt, cutting into his memories and discoloring almost all of them. How many times had Nora insisted Martin behave a certain way so that he would view the boy more favorably? So that he wouldn’t resent him?

A burden, she’d said not so long ago at her father’s front door. She’d always felt Martin was her son and not his, and that he’d seen Martin as a burden. He couldn’t remember what he’d said in reply to that. Denial, no doubt. But nothing would make it better—would bring Martin back or change the way Nora had spent the years of their marriage viewing him. As _what_ , exactly?

“A provider,” he said aloud. He had never been much of a husband but that was their unspoken agreement. They would share a life, a home, and a bed, but only in the strictest, most convenient sense. She hadn’t loved or wanted him even back then. But she was scared, and desperate, and Bill was—well, optimistic. Perhaps foolishly so.

Marrying Nora was also, almost shamefully, he thought now, the equivalent of paying off a debt—a weight lifted from his shoulders.

In those days she was sweet. She braided ribbons into her hair and dressed smartly and was easy to talk to about everyday things. The circumstances under which the marriage happened were sad, and the affair itself nothing fancy or memorable, but he still hoped to make something good out of it. At least this way, he’d thought, neither of them would be alone. And she didn’t have to be afraid of the future—for herself or the child she was carrying. He would take care of it. Of both of them.

And he had.

So maybe he’d neglected his duties as a husband, but the same couldn’t be said for fatherhood.

He’d held Martin at his birth, his son’s skin pink and wrinkled, his little face pinched, almost ugly. He remembered smiling at the sight, and at the sound of his pitifully indignant wailing. _“That’s all you’ve got?”_ he’d asked, but tucked the blanket around his little body and held him close, knowing in his heart that this child was someone he was meant to protect.

He’d loved being a father.

With the kitchen table covered in canned goods and the mismatched dishes that Nora hadn’t taken with her, Bill headed up the stairs. The bedroom he’d shared with Nora was at the end of the hall. It only took a few minutes to pack up the last of his clothes. He would pay the expense to have the bedroom set shipped to Hope Valley, only because the bed had a few sweet memories attached to it, and Nora had left precious little of that behind for him.

He stripped the bed, folded the blankets neatly, and remembered Martin at six years old, struggling to help him tuck the sheets in. Nora had gone to visit her father for the week—the first trip she’d taken alone since Martin’s birth—and that left Bill in charge of everything.

A good memory: Martin on his toes, trying to make sure the top of the sheet was flat, short little arms sliding around the side of the mattress to make sure the sheet was on there just so. It was the average work of a child, but Bill said it was perfect.

It hadn’t been a lie.

It stayed wrinkled until Nora came home.

He left the blankets folded on the bed with his clothes, in a neat stack.

Martin’s room was just down the hall. The door was closed—to preserve it, or maybe to protect it. When he let himself in, it still smelled like it always had: the kind of smell that made Bill think of babies, an association that he’d never be able to explain to anyone else. He knew, already, that the bureau was empty; Nora had taken Martin’s clothes, his blankets, his toys. But the space was still a comfort. Martin had spent a lot of time in his room; he liked being alone, even as a child. He’d spent hours reading by the window or on the floor playing with his toys. Nora found it disconcerting and unnatural, but Bill wasn’t so sure it was. Besides, Martin had always been thoughtful and kind. What more could a parent want than that? So what if he was a bit of a loner, or hated social events?

Bill stared at the bare mattress on the bedframe for a long time, a thousand little memories flitting across his mind. His boy fast asleep on the floor with a toy horse in his hand; in bed with a fever for a week, the pillow damp with sweat; groggily letting himself be roused for school in the morning.

More times than he could count, he’d looked in on Martin when he got home from work late only to find him reading. _“Don’t let your mother catch you,”_ he always said, a small private joke between them.

He would have this bed shipped to Hope Valley, too, though he couldn’t imagine what good it would do him there, and he knew it was silly to be sentimental over mere objects.

The rest of the house was a simple affair. The linen closet only had a few things left in it and the small bathroom contained even less worth keeping. The dining table and china cupboard, bare of china, would be sold with the house.

He moved into the living room where he’d spent countless evenings watching Nora sew and Martin read, listening to one or both of them talk about their day with the crackling of the fireplace in the background.

Nothing in the room had been touched.

Nora couldn’t bear to be in it for even a second; she’d left the books and furniture exactly as they had been the day Martin died.

It played through Bill’s mind as he stepped into the room.

Nothing about that day had faded in his memory, not even the smallest bit. He remembered unlocking the front door and stepping into the house. He’d said that morning over a rushed breakfast that he would be home at lunch, but Nora had planned lunch and tea with her sewing circle and would not be there. She offered to make him something in advance and he thanked her with a smile.

Martin sat in his usual chair at the breakfast table. When Bill excused himself to leave for the office, his son wished him a good morning, a sentiment that was readily returned. Another smile. From both of them.

A regular day.

But something felt wrong in the entryway that afternoon, and the uneasiness didn’t leave him even as he wiped his shoes on the rug and made his way into the kitchen. Something was missing there, like a hole in the room, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to figure out what it was and anyway, he only had an hour for lunch. He headed toward the icebox to see what Nora had thought to leave him. He was halfway to it when he noticed the living room doors: flung wide open. They liked to keep them shut during the day. A shiver of something terrible crawled up his arms, changed his course.

He remembered thinking that it might be nothing, that it was a mistake. That Nora or Martin had forgotten something inside the room and, before leaving for the day, had failed to close the doors again.

But it only took a few long strides to reach the doors, and from there he could see his son. His blood turned to ice at the sight.

Martin hung from the chandelier by a length of rope, toes just an inch off the ground.

A heartbeat passed, stuttered in his chest like the beginning of the end.  He nearly tore his knife from his belt even as he reached frantically for Martin’s legs to lift him another few inches into the air. The blade felt dull against the rope though it wasn’t. The seconds seemed like hours.

At last, Martin fell limply into Bill’s open arms and he dropped the knife, let it hit the floor and skitter away.

He was used to seeing doomed men and knew the signs. Martin wasn’t going to make it. But he still tried to save him, had to, his own hands shaking with fear he couldn’t control. In the end he stopped trying, afraid of wasting his son’s last moments, and gathered him into his arms. Held him. Rocked him, his own grown son, like he was a baby again, fussy and in need of swaddling to feel safe.

And he’d said things, then, that he wanted desperately to believe, like, _“It’ll be all right,”_ and, _“You’ll be okay_.”

And just one thing he felt sure of. A soft, _“You’re forgiven,”_ that forced his voice to crack.

Martin didn’t smile at the words, but the tense lines in his face relaxed, just slightly.

And then he was gone. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t peaceful.

The last memory of his son. Tragic, painful. It hurt to think of, even now, and for so many reasons, but by its very nature it was precious.

It was a blur after that. He remembered stumbling into HQ, Martin still in his arms, and hearing the officer on desk duty saying, _“Back already?”_ And he remembered, hours later, watching another officer pull the rest of the rope out from where it was tangled in the wrought iron of the chandelier. The overturned chair belatedly explained what was missing from the kitchen. And then there was Nora, hysterical, running away from him instead of toward him when, for the first time since they’d married, he wanted nothing more than to hold her, though even then, he’d only wanted a place to put his grief.

Bill moved into the room and stood under the chandelier, his emotions mixed. Nora was right; it was hard being in a house Martin had lived in but would never return to. But she was wrong to think he wasn’t still there in a million little ways. The scuffs on the wainscoting, the worn picture books on the shelves, the scratches on the kitchen table, the broken chair in the dining room… Nora ran from the memories and Bill couldn’t help but embrace them. They were proof Martin had been there, had existed and lived and loved. And they were all that was left of him.

The books he wanted to take to Hope Valley with him he carried back to the kitchen table. He would sell the sofas with the house, and the tables. The writing desk. He didn’t need them.

The rocker would come with him. It had been Nora’s, but he’d spent countless nights in it, too, holding his son.

He turned it toward the center of the room, away from the fireplace, and sat down.

Just an inch of rope.

He looked down at his hands, separating his thumb from his index finger by an inch. That was it. It was hardly anything when viewed like this.

Bill looked up at the chandelier and back down to his hand.

It may as well been a mile, that inch.

He’d been through the what-ifs and if-onlys tens of thousands of times. If the rope had only had more give to it, Martin would still be alive. If only he’d arrived home sooner for lunch, or not wasted his time wiping his feet at the door.

That minute may as well have been an hour.

If only he’d known Martin felt that lonely, or scared, or helpless. Maybe he could have found the right words to say to change his mind.

He still remembered the way Martin felt in his arms that day: light and small, fragile: something to be protected. He’d failed at that, somehow, had missed the signs that, in hindsight, were perfectly clear. He hadn’t spoken the right words, hadn’t come home soon enough, hadn’t left a longer length of rope in the back shed.

An inch, a mile; a minute, an hour.

If only he’d known something was so very wrong.

* * *

 

Bill rose from the rocker some time later and quietly walked the house again with a piece of paper from the writing desk, and one of Martin’s old pencils.

For sale: home, full of memories.

Someone would fix the wainscoting and the dining room chair. They’d paint over the marks on the wall where Nora measured Martin’s height until he’d stopped growing. A different child might get Martin’s old room and fill the little built-in shelves with books or toys or pretty little dolls.

It was nice to think that the place might be repurposed by another family, one looking to make memories of their own.

He wrote down the items to keep on his sheet of paper, careful not to forget anything important. The bedroom set, Martin’s bed and bureau, the rocker, his clothes, the mismatched dishes and books in the kitchen.

And then he went to the shed to get the ladder. He set it up quietly in the living room, directly beneath the chandelier, and made his way up the wooden steps. It was silly, he knew, to think that removing it would do anyone any good, but he couldn’t leave it there, couldn’t let what happened to Martin cast a shadow over another family, even if that fear existed only in his own mind.

It was the matter of half an hour to remove it, and the ceiling looked bare afterward. Ugly, even, with the unpainted bits showing.

But the new owners, when they arrived, could put their own fixture up, perhaps something bright and cheery, something delicate. Something that wasn’t strong enough to hold a grown man’s weight.

 _Throw away,_ he wrote on a new piece of paper from the desk, and stuck it on one of the chandelier’s wrought iron curves.

* * *

 

The shipment arrived three months later.

The veritable pile of furniture and wooden crates were a sight to behold, piled up haphazardly by the mercantile. Abigail stepped out of the front door of her café and, noticing the new scenery, was at Bill’s side in mere moments, broom still in hand.

“Looks like you plan to make Hope Valley your permanent home,” she said.

“Something like that,” came his response, the words sounding almost noncommittal. He wasn’t sure why he bothered to feign indifference. Abigail was smart enough to know the truth.

They stood in silence for a moment before she broke it. “I heard you’ve been looking for a place to buy.”

Bill shrugged, and gave her a sideways glance. “Not much to look at, here.”

“Very little choice, I know. A few of the old company houses are available, though. Not the rowhouses. I don’t recommend those. I mean the better ones.”

“I know.” He turned his head to hide his smirk. “I bought one.”

“Already?” The surprise was evident in her voice. “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

“It’s good news, though. Congratulations. I mean it.” He believed her sincerity, but it was still nice to hear it said. “Need any help moving in?”

He couldn’t resist a jab: “Are you volunteering  your own help or the good pastor’s?”

She laughed, the sound light. “Both, I think. Frank would be happy to help you get these heavier pieces over there, Bill. But _I’m_ happy to bring over some…homey touches.” When he turned to look at her, she was smiling again. “It’s up to you, though.”

He considered refusing just to see where the conversation ended up, but a few curtains or pretty things wouldn’t be unwelcome in his house. It might feel too bare without them.

“Sounds good,” he said. “Guess I should find Frank, then.”

Abigail managed to look pleased, leaning on her broom a bit. “He’s in the café nursing some coffee while he writes a sermon. I’m sure an interruption would be…most welcome.”

“Going that well, huh?”

“Sometimes the words are hard to find.”

He nodded, with more understanding than he’d ever admit to Abigail. “Good to know. I’ll be right over.”

* * *

 

Frank was more than happy for the interruption, and spent half the morning helping Bill to get it all to, and inside, his recently purchased home. It wasn’t as large as he was used to, but it was more than suitable for just one man alone, and leagues better than renting a room over the saloon indefinitely. Abigail stopped by later in the afternoon with a few things for him, and rather than come inside to fuss over setting them out, handed them over in a neatly pressed and folded stack.

“I hope it brightens things up a bit,” she said, and left, her arm looped through Frank’s.

Alone, Bill looked through the things she’d thought to provide him. There were a few sets of heavier curtains for his windows, all matching and sensibly pretty, a rag-rug, kitchen towels, wash-cloths, a lightweight lap quilt, and for some reason, several doilies. He wasn’t sure what to do with the doilies, but ended up placing them on Martin’s bureau in the tiny second bedroom. The lap quilt went on the rocker, the rug beneath it, and the towels and cloths in the kitchen.

He hung the curtains just to see whether or not they would do anything for the space, make it feel like something more than just a building he’d put his things inside, but it didn’t—not really. Maybe because they weren’t his curtains, or hadn’t been his for long enough to feel he owned them.

The larger bedroom barely fit his furniture set, but he and Frank had managed to finagle it all in there somehow, with barely a path to each side of the bed available. It felt cramped until he’d changed for sleep and slid between the sheets; then, somehow, it was almost comfortable.

He closed his eyes and remembered how Martin had come to him one night after a particularly bad nightmare. Nora was fast asleep on the other side of the bed, and Martin had patted his arm to wake him. He’d recently turned twelve, and at first Bill assumed it was a growing-up issue, and was instantly prepared to deal with it tactfully, but when he’d asked Martin what was wrong, he started to cry.

_“I know I’m too old for it but I had a bad dream and it was really bad, it felt real, and I’m too old and I should be able to handle it by myself but I—I can’t, Dad… Can I stay? Please?”_

Twelve _was_ too old to crawl into his parents’ bed with them, but this was his son, and sometimes the best way to protect someone was to provide comfort.

_“Do you want to talk about it?”_

Martin shook his head, a whispered little, _“No,”_ barely moving the air in the room.

So he’d moved over, careful not to disturb Nora, and lifted the blankets.

Martin crawled in, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and Bill pulled the blankets back around the both of them, hand moving up to pass through his son’s hair as it had when Martin had been a little boy afraid of the crack of storms brewing on the horizon.

 _“It’s all right,”_ he’d said, softly. _“You’re okay.”_

It was the best he could do; he’d never been very good at putting other people at ease—at offering words of comfort. The words he came up with never felt like enough.

But they were—at least that night. Bill hadn’t forgotten the moment Martin fell asleep: the soft sigh as his shoulders relaxed, the weight of his son’s head on his shoulder. He’d watched over him the rest of the night, long after his arm went numb, just to be sure he wouldn’t be bothered by another undesirable dream.

* * *

 

The house had flowering bushes along the narrow walk, now, and the front door was a bright white. The shed in the back, visible from the street, had been painted, too: red, in an attempt to match the brick of the house. Bill hadn’t meant to pass by the place. He was in town to see Martin’s grave, the four-year anniversary of his son’s death having recently passed, but his feet carried him there after he’d laid down some flowers at the cemetery. He wasn’t sure if memory or curiosity compelled him.

The little porch had a few potted plants, one chipped at the corner. He could hear the sound of children coming from the backyard, a delighted squeal and a round of laughter followed by a mother’s frustrated scolding.

It was a different place, now, a new family’s home.

He hoped they would be happy, there; that they would make a lifetime of memories and most of them would be good.

There wasn’t time to stop; it was better not to, anyway. His train was leaving at 2:00, and he had less than an hour until then. He let his feet carry him past the house and down to the end of the block, and without a glance back, headed for the station and the train that would take him home.

**Author's Note:**

> [How Do You Get That Lonely?](https://youtu.be/ZdSaI080VXc) \-- Blaine Larsen


End file.
